The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports today that a group that is against public funding for stadiums — they’re actually called “the Coalition Against Public Funding for Stadiums” — is giving the city of St. Louis hell over the fact that it apparently isn’t keeping tabs on whether the Cardinals are keeping the promises they made to the city when Busch Stadium III was built.

Of specific interest: whether owners who sold shares in the team were, as they were required to do, pay the city back the money they received in tax abatements. There were apparently sales — team President Bill DeWitt sold some of his shares as did others — but no collection of the putatively required taxes. Why? It’s unclear. The city and the Cardinals say it wasn’t owed. The Coalition Against Public Funding for Stadiums says that’s not true, and the article at least suggests that the Coalition is right.

I’d normally be inclined to believe the city — since when does the government not try to get all the taxes it’s owed? — but in this case there is reason to doubt. Why? Because the city has apparently never asked the Cardinals to keep track of such things or any of the other promises they made such as the furnishing of free tickets for charitable purposes and the like. When the media finally started asking about free tickets and other things the Cardinals eventually reported — on the honor system, it seems, not pursuant to any standard auditing — that they were holding up their end of the bargain there. The taxes situation is, well, still a little gray.

I don’t know what’s going on here and I don’t have any reason to believe the Coalition people over the city or the team. The Coalition may be a bunch of loony tunes. To the extent we know about what the Cardinals have done pursuant to the stadium agreements, they have performed. But the fact that no one at city hall is keeping tabs on this and that no one knew anything until some angry citizens group and the newspaper started asking questions is troubling to me. Oversight and good bookkeeping always seems to fly out the window when governments get into the ballpark business. They’re fans too. They get a little star struck. No one wants to be seen as hounding a local institution like the Cardinals.

Which of course is yet another reason to keep governments out of the ballpark business.

The Cardinals have always emphasized building from within. In the 2016-17 offseason, however, they may end up being one of the bigger free agent buyers. At least according to some informed speculation.

The Cardinals are already losing their first round pick due to the Fowler signing, so any other top free agent won’t cost them more than the money he’s owed. And as far as money goes, the Cardinals have a great deal of it, despite being a small market team. They have a billion dollar TV deal coming online and Matt Holliday and Jaime Garcia are off the payroll now. Spending big on a free agent or three would not cripple them or anything.

Encarnacion or Trumbo would be first baseman, which wold fly in the face of the Cards’ move of Matt Carpenter to first base (and, at least as far as Encarnacion goes, would fly in the face of good defense). Getting either of them would push Carpenter back to second, displacing Kolten Wong, or over to third, displacing Jhonny Peralta. If you’re going to do that, I’d say that Turner would make more sense, but what do I know?

Either way, the Cardinals may be entering a pretty interesting phase of their offseason now. And an unfamiliar one as, quite possibly, the top free agent buyer on the market.

There is literally nothing you could tell me that the incoming administration is considering which would shock me anymore. As such, I saw this story when I woke up this morning, blinked once, took a sip of coffee, closed the browser window and just went on with my morning, as desensitized as a wisdom tooth about to be yanked.

Rob Bradford of WEEI.com reports that Former Red Sox, Mets and Rangers manager Bobby Valentine is on a short-list of candidates for the job of United States Ambassador to Japan:

The 66-year-old, who currently serves as Sacred Heart University’s athletics director, has engaged in preliminary discussions with President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team regarding the position.

Valentine managed the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan’s Pacific League for six seasons, leading the team to a championship in 2005. He also knows the current prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, as both went to USC. Assuming championship teams meet the country’s leader in Japan like they do in the United States, Valentine has at least twice the amount of experience with top political leaders than does, say, Ned Yost, so that’s something.

The former manager, more importantly, is friends with Donald Trump’s brother, with the two of them going way back. Which, given how this transition is going, seems like a far more important set of qualifications than anything else on this list.